Energy

The British Columbia government has recently made two big decisions that are pulling the province in opposite directions in the climate fight — approving LNG Canada and rolling out the new CleanBCclimate plan.

The British Columbia government has recently made two big decisions that are pulling the province in opposite directions in the climate fight — approving LNG Canada and rolling out the new CleanBCclimate plan.

BC’s new climate plan, Clean BC, is a big and visionary document and was instantly lauded by environmental groups and businesses alike. In this post, I recap the key components of the plan and do a bit of a reality check against the hype, in particular the challenge of fitting liquefied natural gas (LNG) into the plan.

The images from the streets of Paris over the past weeks are stark and poignant: thousands of angry protesters, largely representing the struggling French working class, resorting to mass civil unrest to express fear and frustration over a proposed new gas tax. For the moment, the protests have been successful. French President Emmanuel Macron backed off the new tax proposal, at least for six months. The popular uprising won, seemingly at the expense of the global fight against climate change and the future wellbeing of our planet.

Treaty 8 First Nations are bracing themselves for the impending destruction of traditional hunting grounds and other areas of special cultural significance following last week’s denial of an injunction application to stop work on the Site C dam on B.C.’s Peace River.

[Editor: Video of a lecture held on Oct. 25, 2018 in Vancouver well worth watching. According to Penny Tilby of Vancouver-Burnaby Chapter of The Council of Canadians says: "His amazing talk will make you much more optimistic about the future! His talk is very clear that this can be done, if we have the political will to carry it forward."

Oct 18, 2018 - Highly concentrated corporate ownership of Canada's energy sector and lack of government influence mean there's very little incentive for the fossil fuel industry to pay attention to the dangers of global climate change or worry about the communities and workers that depend on it.